


Who Talks First

by Miss_Macabre_Grey



Series: Filling in Gaps [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-05
Updated: 2017-12-05
Packaged: 2019-02-11 02:02:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12924975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Macabre_Grey/pseuds/Miss_Macabre_Grey
Summary: Lance never really wanted to talk to Lotor, and he figured Lotor only made contact with the team out of desperation. Talking doesn’t solve everything, but it changes some things. Lotor won’t reveal everything about himself, but sometimes the little pieces of each other can form a larger bond.





	Who Talks First

**Author's Note:**

> What’s up, kids, I love you and hope you enjoy dialogue. Usually I think I include more narration in stories, but this one is brimming with conversation and characters just talking. It’s very nice to write, and I wanted to dive into some things for these two I don’t see often and a few cliches that I always see. It was fun for me, so hopefully you like it

Lance walks to the main dining area hoping for anything at all to keep him occupied. He knew it was a bad habit, but the idea of being bored leading you to the kitchen never changes even when you leave the planet. Lance may not have an equivalent to “opening the fridge, saying no, then closing it, and then opening again,” since all they had was space good. Despite _knowing very well_ they only had space goo, the boredom called his name to the kitchen.

Lance assumes the space-equivalent of time should be around 9 pm, according to how his body feels like it is tired but not sleepy tired, just “early-late” tired. Lance knows he is not hungry, least of all for space goo, but at 9 pm, he hopes Hunk will be in the kitchen and willing to chat until it’s the space equivalent to 11 pm or midnight.

When he reaches the corridor, Lance feels disappointed that he sees no Hunk to chat, but he smiles wide and flirty when he sees familiar white hair.

“Hey, Beautiful. Fancy meeting royalty in a place like this,” and Lance lets the words come off his lips with ease until he gets closer and realizes he made a terrible mistake.

A pointed ear comes into view, but it is purple instead of brown, and the white hair is a lot straighter than Lance could justify his confusion on. Never before had Lance cursed how large the castle was, not when it made him mess up people that easily with such distance between them. His heart sank when Lotor turned to face him, eyebrow raised and lips downturned.

“I’m hardly royalty since I a wanted traitor to the Galran Empire.” Lotor, Lance thinks, has no right sounding so calm and collected stating his current universal dislike. “As for meeting me here,” Lotor looks like he could shrug, if shrugging were not so undignified, so he just pauses for thought, “I would think you know well why I would be stuck here.”

“O-oh, yeah. My, uh, my bad. I couldn’t tell it was . . . You. You know?”

At the Lance’s weak explanation, Lotor does shrug, and sighs, and Lance feels almost apologetic if not so annoyed. “Should I assume you would not have spoken to me otherwise?”

Now Lance shrugs, crosses his arms, and tries to think of a response. “I’d, like, say hi. Then probably leave since I’d probably be boring to you. And then it would feel awkward, right?”

Lotor gazes at Lance, but his eyes are hollow and unfocused. “Even if you were as interesting as a twig on the ground, I think you could still make for better amusement than sitting here doing nothing.Worse is that being here has been the highlight of my day. Your princess, ever-so-charming, certainly does not leave anything to be desired in my bedroom.”

Lance feels himself smile, awkward as he chokes back a laugh. “Sarcasm? Really? I never would have thought you’d be the type.” Lance steps closer, taking a seat across Lotor. “But be nice to Allura. She’s pretty badass, you know. She’s as cool as she is deadly.”

“I’m sure you tell her as such. You seem unnervingly disrespectful to your leader. You thought I was she, correct?”

Lance scratches the back of his neck and rolls his eyes. “Well, it’s not like I was wrong either way. You’re both hella hot. I’m just embarrassed I couldn’t tell you apart from the distance. So, uh, sorry about that slip-up.”

Lotor seems complacent in having company, his expression not showing any displeasure when Lance speaks nor enjoyment. Instead of giving Lance pretty much any usable physical cues, he sits back and sighs. “You are quite willing to talk to be tonight, bl-red paladin. When I first arrived, you glared at me for a week and rattled any discreet comment you could at my being here.”

Lance caught the little slip in Lotor’s addressal. So even the amazing former prince could get tricked by colors and purpose. Lance remembered an experiment in high school psychology, one where someone has to say the word of a color, and not the color of the word. Wearing blue all the time and being the red paladin bothered Lotor, and Lance somehow found pride in confusing the high prince so easily. Still, the lack of personal relation annoyed Lance. 

“You know, I’ll admit your hair is something to envy. Ain’t any shame in confessing it. There is a problem in you not calling me by name. I know you know it. I swear, it’s literally one a single word! A syllable. Do you not have lances as weapons in the empire?”

“My apologies, Keith. You must be surely disappointed in my manners.”

Lance pouts, brows furrowed, but he could almost laugh if it would not ruin his attempt at looking upset. “Oh, ha ha, Lotty. Really drive home the whole ‘red paladin’ joke.”

The nickname Lance chose clearly does not please Lotor, but Lance grins ear-to-ear at getting Lotor to actually show that disdain, even if he makes no comment. “Lance,” Lotor starts off, calm, cool, simple -- absolutely enough to throw Lance into confusion. “I ask again, why do you feel inclined to approach me? You know I am not your princess by now.”

“Uh,” Lance begins, the perfect example of his genius as he searches for an explanation. “Have you ever heard of an ice breaker?” Lotor looks at Lance, uncertain and Lance wonders how the automatic translators handled mixing the expression into Lotor’s native tongue. “A-anyway, it means something like small talk that makes it easier to get a conversation going. Confusing you for Allura got a conversation going, so I figured I may as well try to talk to you now that I broke the ice.”

“And your newfound desire to start a conversation? You could have just asked about me, since you seemed interested in me even when you carried yourself in an undignified manner previously around me.”

“Hey! That’s - “ Lance feels his cheeks redden, only in a slight manner that he feels more than he assumes Lotor can see. “Listen, I’m bored, and when I messed up trying to talk to you instead of Allura, you didn’t kill me, and I figured not killing me was a good enough sign that I could talk to you. Besides, I’m only interested in your looks. Allura won’t tell me anything about how she stays so hot in space, so I figured you’d have your own secrets and that I shouldn’t bother.”

“Of all the secrets you think I may keep, the one you respected most was my secret beauty routine?”

“Okay, it sounds dumb when you put it _that_ way. But, honestly, would you have told me?”

That forsaken smirk on Lotor’s face said too much. “For you, Keith, not at all.”

Lance groans into his hands, not willing to look at stupid Lotor and his stupid smirking face and stupid pretty hair. “You’re the worst!”

“I’m reforming, I assure you,” Lotor says even if the smile says otherwise.

“You know what? Forget it. I’m going to just ask for all the big government secrets from you if you won’t give me the really good gossip and news.”

Lotor stands after Lance’s little statement, wordlessly getting two glasses of water from one of the eight levers that dispenses food. Lance feels surprised he got the right level, since he needed weeks before he realized literally only the one supplies water and the others _shoot_ the goo. “Well, Lance? You should have some water if you intend to feel well enough for me to divulge Galran military tactics to you.”

“Wait, whoa, really?” Lance beams as Lotor walks back to him and places the glass of water in front of him. Then Lance remembers why he absolutely never talked to Lotor in the initial days of his stay. Since Lotor was the _worst_. That awful smile, now featuring his fangs in a toothy and sardonic grin.

“I cannot say so, no, but I suppose I am a bit starved for conversation.

Lance reaches for the water, still so baffled at the simple gesture, but thankful because some hydration would do him well. Then, instead of taking a seat across Lance, Lotor chooses the chair beside him. Lotor looks down at his drink instead of at Lance, and Lance cannot place the expression. “You must be really bored, huh?”

“Quite. I pride myself on being a patient man, but this castle is a nothing but a spacious and well-lit prison.”

Lance feels almost sorry for Lotor. Lotor has spent years or millennia (Lance could not guess his age if he tried) doing things no one could justify. Lotor explained himself when he entered the castle, though, about the entire time he spent time going against doing “the right thing,” he spent every minute undermining his father’s plans and being someone exceptionally more morally gray. So Lance can see himself feeding Lotor scraps through prison bars, but he can also see himself having a drink with the guy across a space small food court table swapping stories. The castle makes make for one hell of a prison, and Lotor chose it on his own, but Lance can see how the place could never compare to a home.

“Yeah,” Lance begins, feeling something awkward leak into the mood again as he stretches out the word and sighs. “So, like, I’m not sure what to say.”

“You can go back to being flirtatious. Watching your face fall into a panic when you accidentally called me beautiful was the most fun I have had in awhile.” Lotor still keeps wearing that proud and deceptively beautiful smile.

“That shouldn’t count. I _openly_ called you hot since then. Flirting with you gets me nowhere, though. I would rather debate the cuteness of skunks with Pidge then try legitimately flirting with you.”

Lotor chuckles at that, turning his body away from Lance as he covers part of his face with his hand. The humor is brief, and Lotor sobers himself within a blink of an eye before turning back to Lance. “You aren’t putting on any pretenses. When everyone else on this ship seems to distrust me, you were the one who just earnestly _disliked_ me for something as trivial as me being attractive. More than that, you have taken that reason for being snide and turned into an open conversation. Remarkable. You have little real reservations about my being here, it seems.”

Lance can say that he, truly, liked how Lotor spoke. Not just his voice, but how he fluctuated his tone and how he phrased thoughts into words that were not indirect, but deflected from being careless. With all that Lotor said, he could only nod his head and smile a little to himself, a finger twirling around the edge of his glass. “Yeah . . . I guess.” Lance hates that he sounds so much less assured and suave compared to how Lotor presents himself, but he continues. “I don’t mind you that much, I guess. I don’t mind you being here. But, uh . . . “

Lance has Lotor’s attention. He really is not doing anything to merit attention. He grabs his water and chugs it down, his throat suddenly dry and saying anything to Lotor that he had no business saying to anyone. While he drinks, he can expect Lotor to lose interest and get the hint that he does not want to speak anymore. Yet, the opposite occurs as Lotor takes a sip of his drink, all while looking at Lance. “‘But?’”

Lance pouts and crosses his arms, and he takes another glance at Lotor while he ponders if what he wants to say really would be too much. Lotor seems interested, or at least bored enough to pretend to be interested, in Lance’s words, and Lance does not want to lose the feeling of someone having interest in him so soon.

“I’m, like, kinda only continuing this talk with you because I’m trying to figure out how much better you are than me.” Lance knows what he just said. He thought about using “if,” but he knows he is inferior to Lotor, and he thinks it is a necessary discussion to address.

Lotor has another unreadable expression, and Lance wants to guess that he sees something bothering Lotor, but can’t confirm. “It’s easy to tell, you know. That you’re better than me in a lot of ways. Our team, Voltron, we’re amazing. We’re friends, and we all go into these scary battles knowing it’s dangerous but willing to defend the universe anyway. We have done a lot and we all want to do more, and I think we have the potential for more.” Lance wishes he had more water, but turns to Lotor.

“You coming here just makes me think that we have a lot to work on. We’re a team, but, and this isn’t a big secret, we have flaws and holes, too. You’ve exploited some of those holes, after all!” A forced laugh, but it becomes genuine at the edge. “Those holes got so big that if you hadn’t helped us, we would have definitely lost Keith. I don’t even know if Keith’s plan would have worked, and we could have lost everything in one swoop. But you zoomed in and did something we couldn’t.”

“You’re welcome, of course,” Lotor interrupted, but his tone was flat instead of more snarky. Almost like he was trying to say that he would be willing to do it again, but that was Lance looking too far into things.

“Pfft, yeah, yeah, thank you, Lotor, but more importantly, we may need you to help us again — whether we want your help or not. I’m not throwing a fit about you staying here just because you’re some son of someone or because you’re hotter than me. I’m upset that, at the end of the day, my feelings won’t matter because we need you. Maybe even more than we need me, even, but that’s not an important fact to you. After all, I’m just, um, trying to not have any ‘reservations’ talking to you. So I’m telling you why I was being so immature before.”

“That . . . seems like you, from the little interactions I’ve had with you. I suppose you feel threatened that I’d make a better red paladin than you, yes?” Lotor’s eyes were inexplicably dark.

“A part of me thinks that, but I especially couldn’t handle the thought of you being a better paladin but not a better team member. You fill in a lot of holes, but I was scared that if you replaced me as a fighter, you could, I dunno, betray the team and not actually be the person we needed you to be. Being mean and not letting someone more skilled take Red from me felt safer than risking a friendship falling apart and the team collapsing from the inside.”

“Why would I collapse the friendship, exactly, if I piloted a lion?”

Lance unfolded his arms, wiggling his fingers and waving his hands as he tried to think of how to phrase things. “Don’t you know anything about Voltron? It’s five people! Even if you pilot one, if you aren’t close, then there’d be distrust and resentment and working together to form would be harder. That’s how your dad messed up when he was a part of Voltron. You’re not our friend, Lotor. We aren’t the ones you consider a team. If you aren’t close with us it’ll fall apart like how Zarkon and Alfor did whenever they used to be friends and the team. It’s not like I was there, but from what I can tell, acting as a single unit matters.”

The shock on Lotor’s face appeared for a moment, flashing away fast, but it was as sincere as it was fleeting. Lance said a lot of things; he knows something he said struck a chord in Lotor. As much as he wants to think it’s because of what he said about his dad, Lance takes another guess. He opens his mouth to ask Lotor, but Lotor decides he has done enough of the talking.

“I’m surprised you think I’m not charming enough to be able to fool the others into thinking we were friends enough to form Voltron.” A deflection, Lance can spot someone hurt trying to avoid the real subject a mile away. “Thank you for the information on how I would go about dismantling Voltron. Now you could remain the pilot for all I care, so long as I sewed seeds of doubt and betrayal amongst you lot.”

“That probably wouldn’t be hard. We’re only human, for the most part. But you wouldn’t. You aren’t going to dismantle Voltron.”

“Is there an ‘or else’ after that?”

Lance smirks. Lotor mentioned wanting Lance to be more flirtatious, and the smirk is anything but innocent. “Not at all, Lotor. It’s a statement. You wouldn’t be able to dismantle Voltron. You can plant anything you want in our hearts that will make us not be on good terms, but we would turn on you faster, send you into space to choke, then have a group talk about our feelings and group hug with some tears involved. And I don’t think you won’t try it not because of what will happen to your pretty face in uninhabited space, but because you don’t want us to turn on you.”

Rolling his eyes, Lotor scoffed. “It’s not advantageous to have my only source of food and shelter turn on me, no. If destroyed your team, no one has taught me how to control this cursed vessel of a castle.”

Lance shook his head. “No, that’s only a small reason. It’s biological, necessary, sure, but that’s not it. You’d find another ship and hide. You’re a sneaky guy. You seem like someone who, to me, just doesn’t want his life to fall apart again. You want to settle in life securely, with confidence, with a power you’ve worked hard for and can use well. You want that, yeah, but you just seem like the type of guy who had that all taken away in such a horrible way, that you’re avoiding anything that may get you hurt again. You don’t want us to hurt you because you’ve been hurt by people around you already.”

Lotor shattered the glass in his hand. “No, you are a fool. I am a powerful prince fit to rule subject with a fair and steady hand. I am in control and capable of staying in control even as those around me fall apart and make poor choices. I will be the victor in the end, as I designed.”

“Lotor, you’re not a prince. Your ‘steady hand’ crushed a defenseless glass. You know you’ve been betrayed. You don’t want to lose this ship because you’ll have no-one who could even _pretend_ you’re the good guy in the right. Losing Voltron’s support would mean no-one in the universe would let you have anything, and you want to be supported as a leader when you take power. You want to be a different person than Zarkon who uses fear.”

“I will always be a different and better leader than him,” Lotor’s breath spoke in a cold fire. The tone and words almost burned Lance’s nerves. “And you are just a silly human paladin who will be subject to that rule.”

Lance shrugged. “Doubtful since you’re helping us emancipate the universe and all. Besides, I already told you it’s obvious that you don’t want just subjects. You want a team, too, like all of us.”

“I do not need a team. Teams fall apart. Yours will shatter without my influence in due time, no doubt.”

“What part of you is saying that? I made it obvious that I think with lots of parts of me. I have reason and I have emotions. I’m jealous of you, I think, but I don’t envy you. Or maybe it’s the reverse of that, since I’m not clever with words. But, basically, you have qualities that I’d love to have, but you are not someone I actually want to be.”

“You humans are weak. Thinking with emotions is such an honest thing, let alone too honest to admit.”

“Hey, you do things for emotions, too. Weren’t you the one wanting to talk to me out of boredom? And you’re also changing the subject. You want a team, Lotor. I’m not going to say someone like you _deserves_ to have the satisfaction of having friends and teamwork, but I think you’re someone who would benefit from it, and has potential to actually want it, from us paladins, eventually, if you continue helping the universe.”

“You would betray me.”

Lance freezes. The words, only four, said so much. Lotor really is having some of this conversation get through to Lotor. Lance is bad at getting people to take him seriously, getting them to talk to him like an equal. Lance has given the others every reason to think he was just a fool, too. Flirting with dangerous aliens, messing up missions, taking all the hot water showers: Lance could say a million flaws he has, especially dealing with other people and his self-presentation. With Lotor, though, he has not screwed up enough times. Sure, Lance defaulted to a playful and silly version of himself out of habit, but he could do a backflip at Lotor actually beginning to listen to him and not try and belittle Lance much.

“We did not enter this partnership to betray you, Lotor. We’re worried, cautious, and sometimes bitter that you’re pretty, but no one hear _wants_ to betray you. We got no plans to betray you, only counter measures if you stab us in the back. I know that’s not enough to make us have a blooming friendship on trust and care, but never think that we _want_ to hurt you.”

Lotor still keeps his fist clenched from shattering the glass. Lance did not flinch, nor attempt to clean it up in fear of getting up first meaning the little heart-to-heart would end. Lance just stays, trying to watch Lotor’s body language and his way of relaxing his body. Not one to mind being stared at, Lance slightly freaks out when Lotor’s eyes linger on his for several moments in silence. When Lotor speaks, their gazes are still interlocked, but Lotor’s features soften. 

“You don’t have to want to betray me now to do so later,” Lotor says to himself as much as Lance. “I will try not to hold any grudge when Voltron eventually has no use for me or disposed of me if they see me as a threat.”

“You . . .” Lance extends a hand, hovers it in the air as he debates what to do with it. “Is that how you treat all the relationships you’ve had that ended poorly?” Lance asks, taking a hold of Lotor’s relaxing fist, trying to not press hard lest glass make its way into their skin.

“No, usually I kill or injure traitors.”

“Usually isn’t always, so it’s nice to know you’re capable of being compassionate. I . . . Well, you know I’m a weak human with emotions. I’m curious about how you function for me as much as it’s for the team’s intel network. But, I, uh, get not talking anymore. I can go back to being flirty and asking if a pretty person like you comes here often.”

Lotor smiles, but it seems vacant, but Lance feels happy when Lotor squeezes Lance’s hand back, no cruel force or pressure. They hold hands without any cruel intentions, and Lance rubs circles over Lotor’s with his thumb.

“I bare no ill-will towards them. I think they’re perfectly rational, and I can’t fault them. After all, they . . . saw the worst of me, the me who betrayed one of us, and tried to play it off and kept leading without accounting for my actions. They _did not_ betray me, now that I say it out loud. I took their trust and crushed it. I would have done the same. I think trying to turn my one life in and save their three lives was the better choice than my leading us all to doom.”

Lance hears every word, and wonders if he can hear the tears in Lotor’s heart as it tore from his own explanation. So, wordlessly, Lance wraps his arms around Lotor and takes in a deep breath. Soon, Lotor gets the hint, and takes some of his own deep breaths until they synchronized and calmly hold each other’s in their arms.

“Lotor, I . . . I know that’s what you _genuinely_ think, but what do you _feel_? Logically, you aren’t hurt. You accept your generals completely. But you’re not saying a lot about what you’re going through from that. I won’t make you say it, but, Lotor, you need to tell yourself, at least. And I’ll be here for you in case you are ever ready to talk about that.”

“Paladins are so noble. You think I would come for you for comfort when I could not even turn to my most trusted generals?”

“It’s not about nobility. We’re just some people who got this job of defending the universe by chance. I’m not here thinking you will come for help, but I am here to offer it. I was scared you wouldn’t be right for this team, but I’m willing to help you feel safe in it when I can.”

Sucking in another long breath, Lotor lessened his hold on Lance and released him enough to have his arms around Lance’s shoulder but not touching otherwise. Lance thinks they feel almost closer, with how Lance can now count every individual strand of hair in each of Lotor’s eyebrows and feel Lotor’s breath on his skin. “Lance, do you want me to be a part of this team?”

Lance feels his face redden, trying hard to not pull away as a very handsome alien holds him close and asks questions he has no answer to. “Um. Yeah? I mean, overalls yeah. I told you. You fill in holes. You’re hot. You’re, um, not the worst, morally. Talking to you for the first time isn’t half as weird as talking to Keith, so . . . I think that if I could trust you to be in this team, then I wouldn’t even hesitate saying yes.”

“I detest not being able to see the lies in your eyes.” The words sound menacing to Lance’s ears, and he genuinely worries that Lotor is going to take his defenseless hug state and hurt him from paranoia of lies. Instead, Lotor smiles softly and casts his gaze downward. “I think you’re genuine, Lance. That brings me all the more worry about the future. But. For now, I will allow myself the illusion that this Team Voltron is worth my time, and will try to aid it from a genuine desire to support it.”

“Thank you, Lotor. I think, at least. I’m just one person, but welcome to Voltron.”

Lotor releases Lance entirely, smiles at Lance once more before turning back to the glass on the table. “I have no idea where this castle’s supplies for picking up the mess are.”

“Uuuuh, honestly, same. Wanna walk away and blame it on the mice if someone asks?”

Lotor raised a brow at him, and the various smiles of forlorn or soft or sweet morphed into a wicked smirk. “If you take me to your room, certainly. I have no interest in returning to my own closet of a room knowing I have an ally on this ship.”

Lane laughed, and stood up. “Sure. Most people would say ‘friend’, but it’s work in progress. C’mon, let’s go be bored in my room together.”

**Author's Note:**

> I literally went into this fic thinking I could let Lance talk about himself and racism in Cuba. AND YET there’s no mention of anything like that. Heck, there was even going to be some sex and bonding and all that stuff. But if you liked seeing them develop feel free to let me know since I definitely have a lot of things I wanna write in this little world.
> 
> Love,  
> Grey


End file.
